(Comrade Lenin is greeted by the delegates with stormy
applause.)
Comrades, in a certain sense this Congress of the women's
section of the workers' army has a special significance, because
one of the hardest things in every country has been to stir the
women into action. There can be no socialist revolution unless
very many working women take a big part in it.

In all civilised countries, even the most advanced, women are
actually no more than domestic slaves. Women do not enjoy full
equality in any capitalist state, not even in the freest of
republics.

One of the primary tasks of the Soviet Republic is to abolish
all restrictions on women's rights. The Soviet government has
completely abolished divorce proceedings, that source of
bourgeois degradation, repression and humiliation.

It will soon be a year now since complete freedom of divorce was
legislated. We have passed a decree annulling all distinction
between legitimate and illegitimate children and removing
political restrictions. Nowhere else in the world have equality
and freedom for working women been so fully established.

We know that it is the working-class woman who has to bear the
full brunt of antiquated codes.

For the first time in history, our law has removed everything
that denied women rights. But the important thing is not the
law. In the cities and industrial areas this law on complete
freedom of marriage is doing all right, but in the countryside
it all too frequently remains a dead letter. There the religious
marriage still predominates. This is due to the influence of the
priests, an evil that is harder to combat than the old
legislation.

We must be extremely careful in fighting religious prejudices;
some people cause a lot of harm in this struggle by offending
religious feelings. We must use propaganda and education. By
lending too sharp an edge to the struggle we may only arouse
popular resentment; such methods of struggle tend to perpetuate
the division of the people along religious lines, whereas our
strength lies in unity. The deepest source of religious
prejudice is poverty and ignorance; and that is the evil we have
to combat.

The status of women up to now has been compared to that of a
slave; women have been tied to the home, and only socialism can
save them from this. They will only be completely emancipated
when we change from small-scale individual farming to collective
farming and collective working of the land. That is a difficult
task. But now that Poor Peasants' Committees are being formed,
the time has come when the socialist revolution is being
consolidated.

The poorest part of the rural population is only now beginning
to organise, and socialism is acquiring a firm foundation in
these organisations of poor peasants.

Before, often the town became revolutionary and then the
countryside.

But the present revolution relies on the countryside, and
therein lie its significance and strength. the experience of all
liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution
depends on how much the women take part in it. The Soviet
government is doing everything in its power to enable women to
carry on independent proletarian socialist work.

The Soviet government is in a difficult position because the
imperialists of all countries hate Soviet Russia and are
preparing to go to war with her for kindling the fire of
revolution in a number of countries and for taking determined
steps towards socialism.

Now that they are out to destroy revolutionary Russia, the
ground is beginning to burn under their own feet. You know how
the revolutionary movement is spreading in Germany. In Denmark
the workers are fighting their government. In Switzerland and
Holland the revolutionary movement is getting stronger. The
revolutionary movement in these small countries has no
importance in itself, but it is particularly significant because
there was no war in these countries and they had the most
"constitutional" democratic system. If countries like these are
stirring into action, it makes us sure the revolutionary
movement is gaining ground all over the world.

No other republic has so far been able to emancipate woman. The
Soviet Government is helping her. Our cause is invincible
because the invincible working class is rising in all
countries. This movement signifies the spread of the invincible
socialist revolution.
(Prolonged applause.
All sing the "Internationale".)